Lone Star Language
The way that Texans speak
has a special place in the story of American English. Jan
Tillery
and Guy Bailey of the University of Texas at San Antonio
explain.

Few states have as great a presence in the popular imagination as
Texas. For many Americans the mere mention of the state brings to mind
oil and cowboys, glitzy modern cities and huge isolated ranches,
braggadocio and excess. The popular image has been fueled to a large
extent by the size of the state, its portrayal in television shows such
as Dallas and in movies such as Giant andThe
Alamo,
its larger-than-life political figures such as Lyndon Johnson, and its
unique history.

Unlike other states, Texas was an independent nation before it
became a state, had its own Revolutionary War and creation story (who
hasn’t heard of the Alamo?), and negotiated special considerations when
it joined the union (the Texas flag, for instance, can fly at the same
level as the United States flag). Moreover, the pride of Texans in
their state and its culture reinforces the idea that Texas is somehow
unique. Visitors to the state are often struck by the extent to which
the Texas flag is displayed, not only at government offices, but also
at private residences, on the sides of barns, at car dealerships, and
on tee shirts, cups, and other items. The Texas flag flies virtually
everywhere, even in area like the Rio Grande Valley, where the flag of
Texas often stands along side the flag of Mexico.

Perhaps because of the sense of the state’s uniqueness in the
popular imagination, Texas English (TXE) is often assumed to be somehow
unique too. The inauguration of George W. Bush as President, for
instance, led to a rash of stories in the popular media about the new
kind of English in the White House (Armed Forces Radio ran an interview
with us on the new President’s English once an hour for 24 hours). The
irony of the media frenzy, of course, is that the man George Bush was
replacing in the White House spoke a variety of English that was quite
similar to Bush’s in many ways and perhaps even more marked by regional
features. Actually the uniqueness of TXE is probably more an artifact
of the presence of Texas in the popular imagination than a reflection
of linguistic circumstances. Only a few features of Texas speech do no
occur somewhere else. Nevertheless, in its mix of elements both from
various dialects of English and from other languages, TXE is in fact
somewhat different from other closely related varieties.

A Short Linguistic History of Texas

Historically, English is the second language of the
state

Any linguistic overview of Texas must begin with the realization
that English is, historically, the second language of the state. Even
setting aside the languages of Native Americans in the area, Spanish
was spoken in Texas for nearly a century before English was. With the
opening up of Texas to Anglo settlement in the 1820s, however, English
quickly became as widely used as Spanish, although bilingualism was not
uncommon in early Texas. While the outcome of the Texas Revolution
meant that Anglos would outnumber Hispanics for many years to come and
that English would be the dominant language in the new nation and
state, the early Hispanic settlement of the state insured that much of
that culture (the ranching system, for example) and many Spanish words
(e.g., mesa, remuda, and pilon) would blend with the
culture and language that Anglos brought from the east to form a unique
Texas mix. The continuing influx of settlers from 1840 to the beginning
of the twentieth century enhanced and transformed the mix.

Anglos from both the Lower South (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama,
Georgia, and South Carolina) and the Upper South (Tennessee, Kentucky,
and North Carolina) moved rapidly into the new state after 1840,
frequently bring their slaves with them. Lower Southerners generally
dominated in east and southeast Texas and Upper Southerners in the
north and central parts of the state, though there was considerable
dialect mixing. This complex dialect situation was further complicated,
especially in southeast and south central Texas, by significant direct
migration from Europe. Large numbers of Germans, Austrians, Czechs,
Italians, and Poles (the first permanent Polish settlement in the U.S.
was at Panna Maria in 1854) came to Texas during the nineteenth
century. In some cases their descendants preserved their languages well
into the twentieth century, and they influenced English in certain
parts of Texas even as they gradually gave up their native tongues.

Although the border between Texas and Mexico has always been a
permeable one, migration from Mexico accelerated rapidly after the
Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, slowed somewhat during the mid
twentieth century, and since 1990 has been massive. As late as 1990,
only 20% of the 4 million Mexican Americans in Texas were born in
Mexico. After 1990, however, the number of immigrants grew rapidly.
During the two-year span between 2000 and 2002, for instance, foreign
migration into Texas, most of it from Mexico totaled more than 360,000.
The new immigration is steadily changing the demographic profile of the
state and insures that Spanish will remain a vital language in Texas
for some time to come. In fact, it has led to a resurgence of Spanish
in some areas. The linguistic consequences of the new migration will be
worth following.

Some Characteristics of Texas English

As the settlement history suggests, TXE is a form of Southern
American English and thus includes many of the lexical, grammatical,
and phonological features of Southern American English. As a result of
the complex settlement pattern, however, the South Midland/Southern
dialect division that divided areas to the east was blurred in Texas.
Throughout the history of the state, South Midland lexical items (e.g.,
green bean and chigger) and phonological features (e.g.,
constricted post-vocalic /r/ in words like forty and intrusive
/r/ in words like warsh) have coexisted and competed with
Southern words (e.g., snap bean and redbug) and
pronunciations (“r-lessness” in words like forty and four),
although Southern features were and still are strongest in east Texas.
In south, south central, and west Texas, a substantial number of
Spanish words gained general currency.

Lexical items like frijoles, olla, arroyo, and remuda
reflect not only the relatively large number of Hispanics in the areas,
but also the importance of Mexican American culture in the development
of a distinct Texas culture. These areas of the state are different
linguistically in one other way.

Many features of Southern American English never became as
widespread there so that hallmarks of Southern English like the
quasi-modal fixin to (as in, “I can’t talk to you now; I’m
fixin to leave”) multiple modals like might could (as in, “I
can’t go today, but I might could go tomorrow”) and traditional
pronunciations like the upgliding diphthong in dog (often
rendered in dialect literature as dawg) have always been
restricted in their occurrence in south and south central Texas,
although they occurred extensively elsewhere.

Other trademarks of Southern English also occur extensively
throughout most of the state, with south and south central Texas
sometimes being exceptions. These include both stereotypical
phonological features such as the pen/pin merger (both words
sound like the latter) and the loss of the offglide of /ai/ in words
like ride and right (so that they sound like rahd
and raht) and also grammatical features like y’all, fixin
to, and perfective done (as in “I’ve done finished
that”). In addition, a number of lexical items seem to have originated
or have their greatest currency in Texas (e.g., tank ‘stock
pond,’ maverick ‘stray or unbranded,’ calf, doggie
‘calf,’ and roughneck ‘oil field worker’), while at least one
traditional pronunciation, the use of ar in words like horse
and for (this makes lord sound like lard),
occurs only in Texas, Utah and a few other places.

Few states have been transformed as radically as Texas has during
the last thirty years. Rapid metropolitanization, the increasing
dominance of high tech industries in the state’s economy, and massive
migration have reshaped the demography of the state. Roughly a third of
the population now lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San
Antonio metropolitan areas, and non-native Texans make up an
increasingly large share of that population. Between 1950 and 1970, 85%
of the population growth in Texas came from natural increase. With
people moving rapidly into the state from other areas during the 1970s,
migration accounted for 60% of the population during the 70s. While
migration slowed during the 1980s, accounting for only 35% of the
growth, during the 1990s it accelerated again and accounted for more
than half. Much of the migration into Texas before 1990 was from other
states, but since 1990 it has been from other countries. Texas, then,
has become a metropolitan, diverse, high-tech state—with significant
linguistic consequences.

Perhaps the most obvious consequence is an emerging rural-urban
linguistic split. Although most Southern features remain strong in
rural areas and small cities, in large metropolises many stereotypical
features are disappearing. The pen/pin merger, the loss
of the of the offglide in /ai/, and upgliding diphthongs in words like dog
are now recessive in metropolitan areas, although the first two in
particular persist elsewhere. The urban-rural split is so far largely a
phonological one, though. Both y’all and fixin to are
expanding to non-natives in metropolises (and to the Hispanic
population too). Those grammatical features that are disappearing in
metropolises (e.g., perfective done) seem to be disappearing
elsewhere as well.

This is Texas, and things are just different

Even as some traditional pronunciation features are disappearing,
some interesting new developments are taking place. Especially in urban
areas, but also in rural west Texas, the vowels in words like caught
and cot are becoming merged (both sound like cot), as
are tense/lax vowel pairs before /l/: pool-pull are now
homophones throughout much of the state, and feel-fill and sale-sell
are increasingly becoming so. The caught-cot merger is
particularly interesting in Texas since it should signal the movement
of the phonological system away from the “Southern Shift” pattern. In
the Texas Panhandle, though, things are not quite so simple. Even as
the caught-cot merger has become the norm among those born
after World War II, the loss of the offglide in right and ride
and Southern Shift features remain quite strong. What seems to be
emerging on the west Texas plains, then, is a dialect that combines
features of Southern speech and another major dialect. The development
of such a mixed pattern is not what a linguist might expect, but this
is Texas, and things are just different.

Thomas, Erik R. An Acoustic Analysis of Vowel Variation in
New World English. PADS 85. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.

Tillery, Jan, Guy Bailey, and Tom Wikle. Forthcoming.
“Demographic Change and American Dialectology in the 21st
Century.” American Speech.

Guy
Bailey
is Provost and Executive
Vice-President at the University of Texas at San Antonio and continues
the work he began on Texas speech in the 1980s. A Texas native, Jan Tillery
is an associate
professor of English at
the University of Texas at San Antonio who researches the dialects of
Texas and Southern American English generally.